Entry-Level Community Radio

That Pekarek wanted to do this show is natural enough – along with all those grandkids to practice on, she has a master’s degree in elementary education, and was a classroom teacher some years ago. But that she was able to do it, with virtually no funding and absolutely no broadcasting experience, is a function of the emergence of low power FM, or LPFM, community radio stations over the past four years.

About 3,400 applications were received for licenses, coming from schools, church groups, and a wide range of community groups. “They’re all over the map,” said Kai Aiyetoro of the National Federation of Community Broadcasters. “From religious to country to hip-hop.” Some stations, she said, are open to children’s programming – but overall, that has not proved to be a major focus of this new breed of station. According to Aiyetoro, it takes from $15,000 to $30,000 in initial outlays to launch a station successfully, with most of it going towards the cost of the receiver.

So far, according to the FCC website, 371 LPFM stations are now on the air. Another 736 have been issued construction permits but are not on the air. Aiyetoro says it’s hard to know exactly how many of those will ever broadcast – licensees have only 18 months to complete construction and get on the air, so some groups run out of time.

WVLP-FM, at 98.3 on the dial in Valparaiso, was one of the first stations to win its license and begin broadcasting. It’s been on the air for over two years. Pekarek says the initial effort came from a group of her friends in the town, who already had the necessary radio equipment. The group, fittingly, is called Neighbors, Inc.

“This really gave the city its own identity,” says Pekarek, who notes that the city receives most of its radio from Chicago. There’s also a local college station. WVLP operates on a shoestring, says Pekarek, with just one paid employee – a technician.

“They put a call out for people interested in doing programming. They heard from all kinds of people, it was a very interesting cross-section,” says Pekarek. She and a few friends put together an application for Stories with Old Nana. They got a local chain bookstore to underwrite the program for the modest sum of $1,000, and to loan books each week to be read on the air.

In the first months of 2005, Pekarek handed her imaginary shawl to a friend, Dawn Fry, who has become the new voice of Old Nana. Pekarek moved to Wisconsin to help out with three of those grandchildren.

“None of them ever got to hear Old Nana,” says Nancy. “None of them lived in listening distance.”